2 54 Charles Darwin. 



grief, is, therefore, later in phylogenetic. develop- 

 ment. The laws of heredity and adaptation are 

 found to be operating here, as elsewhere, in the 

 domain of life ; the supposed gap between the emo- 

 tions of man and of other animals is successfully 

 bridged over, and another anthropocentric fallacy is 

 consigned to the limbo of ignorant superstitions. 



Many expressions of the lower emotions are found 

 to be disfiguring vestiges of acts useful to lower 

 animals for offence and defence, or for obtaining 

 food. • These survive — relics of the previous history 

 of our race — as rudimentary organs are preserved 

 long after their use has ceased. The erection of the 

 hair during fear is remotely derived from the same 

 cause that makes puss bristle when attacked and the 

 puff adder swell out when approached. Originally 

 used for the purpose of exciting fear in an enemy by 

 an increase of size, it now involuntarily accompanies 

 the somewhat changed emotion of which some of the 

 phases are extinct. It is not very rare to find per- 

 sons who can make the hair over the front of the 

 head bristle at will. Rage is habitually expressed by 

 uncovering the teeth, which is, in the lower animals, 

 an attempt to frighten their enemies by a show of 

 weapons. This expression may become softened 

 and modified to express the milder emotions of con- 

 tempt and disdain. I have met a lady who has to 

 perfection the rather rare accomplishment mentioned 

 by Darwin of drawing up the upper lip in a triangu- 

 lar notch directly over the canine teeth so as to dis- 

 play them alone, usually on one side at a time. 

 This most expressive gesture of disdain can be per- 



